Bi-wire or Bi-amp

[jhudgens]

trying to decide weather to run a 7.1 set-up and bi-wire my fronts or go with a 5.1 and bi-amp them. my receiver can only do one or the other. someone please help me

[zane77]

Do a search on bi-wire or bi-amp there are several threads that cover this, but for the most part most people don't find bi-amping with a receiver really makes no difference me included

[pyrocyborg]

I never heard a difference from bi-wiring, whatever the system. Not to say that it is useless, as I'm not here to judge, but if it works, it's not that noticeable of an improvement; you could better put your money elsewhere than buying 2 times your total length of cables for a minimal (hypothetical) gain.

On the other hand, bi-amping might work, but doing it from a single receiver increases it's load for absolutely nothing (with some receiver, it divides the impedance by 2, meaning your receiver has to draw twice the power to actually drive your speakers at the same volume... most receiver won't last long using this kind of connection at high volume). Also, depending on your speaker, bi-amping with 2 amps might not even give anything else than more power as they need an active crossover to really benefit from this kind of connection, and most consumer speakers don't have this kind of crossover.

[pyrocyborg]

Also, wrong section... should be in basic hookup and wiring, not subwoofer and bass management